


Perforation

by Vertiga



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Angst, Fake AH Crew, Gen, Major Character Injury, Permanent Injury, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 11:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3726313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vertiga/pseuds/Vertiga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jobs can go wrong in a second, and not everything can be fixed. Geoff finds himself dealing with a nightmare situation: Gavin is badly hurt, and even if he recovers, he's never going to be the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perforation

It was supposed to be a simple job. The Lost MC were overstepping their boundaries, creeping into the industrial parks north of the city and establishing a new base to bring their meth into Los Santos. Geoff was distinctly unimpressed, and as soon as he had a read on their location he made plans to take them out in a suitably flashy manner. Picking them off a few at a time would have been easy, but Geoff never missed an opportunity to send a message.

Zeroing in on the warehouse at the centre of their operation, Michael had crept in under cover of darkness and rigged the outer walls with enough C4 to bring down the Great Wall of China.

As the sun rose, the core members of the Fake AH had ringed the outside of the compound at a safe distance, waiting to shoot down anyone who escaped the blast.

'Alright, show time,' Geoff said, tapping his comm and tipping the nod to Michael.

Michael grinned, early morning shadows turning his smile to something sinister and strange. He held the detonator aloft like an offering.

'Wakey wakey, bitches!' he shouted, and flipped the switch.

There was a deep boom and a screech of tearing metal from the other side of the compound, a plume of concrete dust rising into the still, smoggy air.

Geoff frowned. It was a good deal less of a bang than he'd been expecting.

'Is that it?' Ryan asked from further round the building, sounding disappointed. Geoff couldn't blame him - a single rocket would have been more impressive. There hadn't even been a fireball.

Michael was turning the detonator over in his hands, scowling as he deftly checked the wiring. He hit the switch a few more times, but nothing happened. The dust drifted and began to settle, Michael's cursing loud over the comm in the unexpected quiet.

'What the fuck?' Geoff murmured, watching Michael work.

'Oh Christ!' Gavin cried.

Geoff whipped to the right, staring down the length of the building to Gavin's position outside a fire-door.

'Here they come!' Gavin shouted, as the door burst open in a hail of bullets.

Geoff saw Gavin stagger, felt his heart clench in his chest, but after a moment's shock Gavin's gun came up and he was firing back, scrambling towards the cover of a rusted water tank.

'Right side! Right side!' Geoff shouted, counting on his earpiece to carry the words to those too far away to hear him.

The aborted explosion had been a disaster - more of a warning to their enemies than an effective strike against them. At least twenty furious meth-fuelled bikers had already poured out of the door by Gavin, and even as Geoff opened fire he knew they were in for a nasty fight.

Over the crack of bullets he could hear Ray scrambling across the metal rooftops, repositioning to get a good line of sight.

'Nearly there, nearly there!' the sniper promised, followed by a crash as he fell to his knees. 'I got you.'

The tearing snap of his first shot had Geoff's muscles unclenching just a little. Knowing they had eyes up high was a comfort even in the deepest of shit.

He peered around the corner of the warehouse, trying to assess the situation. There were a few men down in the open space, but too many more had found cover, pouring an unrelenting rain of fire towards Gavin's hiding spot. 

Geoff fired at the few he could see, then had to duck away as answering rounds zinged off the wall beside his head.

'Gav? Gav, can you get out?' he asked.

'I'm pinned! Can't run!' Gavin replied, voice high and thin with stress.

'I can't fire rockets down there, I'm gonna hit Gavin,' Ryan said.

'We're at the other corner, Geoff,' Jack said. 'We can cover you,'

Geoff was intensely grateful that Jack knew him so well. He hadn't even had to explain what was in his head before she was making it happen.

'Covering fire in 3... 2... 1!'

He heard a hail of bullets start up from the far end of the warehouse and threw himself out of cover, trusting Jack and Ryan not to hit him as he ran full tilt for the water tank where Gavin was hiding.

One of the bikers risked poking out of cover, trying to get a clear shot at Geoff despite the heavy fire. Before Geoff could even raise his rifle there was an echoing crack and the man fell with a bullet in his head.

'Stay down, asshole!' Ray bit out, and Geoff would have laughed if he didn't need all his breath for running.

He slid into cover beside Gavin like it was home plate at the goddamn world series, hearing the first shots clang hollowly into the tank behind him as soon as Ryan and Jack stopped firing. Gavin was leaning against the back of the tank, his rifle in his hands, wide eyed and frantic. Blood was spreading steadily down the right leg of his jeans from his calf, and Geoff wasted no time, getting to his feet and slinging his rifle across his chest. Ducking under Gavin's arm, he took as much of the lad's weight as he could.

'You got anything left in that gun?' he asked.

Gavin nodded quickly.

'Spray and pray, then,' Geoff ordered him. 'Jack, Ryan, we're coming out!'

'Make it quick, we've only got one more reload each,' Ryan said.

'Ready? 3... 2... 1!'

He hauled Gavin out of cover, half-deaf with the crack and hiss of bullets passing far too close for comfort. If he hadn't known the expert fingers on the triggers he would have called it suicidal to even poke his head out, never mind go stumbling across eighty yards of open space with Gavin hanging off him, slender body shuddering as he fired wildly at the side of the building. It was working, though, the far corner of the warehouse and an open route out growing closer by the moment.

'Grenade!' Jack screamed.

Geoff took a gamble and shoved them forward, letting Gavin overbalance and land flat on the concrete underneath him.

The blast stole the breath from his lungs, setting his ears ringing as though he'd been punched in the head. There was a savage heat in his legs, pinpricks of white-hot pain where the fragments of steel had burrowed into his flesh.

He shook off the haze, aware of Gavin gasping underneath him, and struggled to his knees, readying himself to keep running as best he could.

'Keep covering, guys,' he said, his voice sounding thick and unnatural in his ears.

There was a mechanical rumble growing nearer, but in his rattled state he hadn't managed to identify it before the Roosevelt came roaring around the corner, stopping between him and the enraged bikers with a screech and a strong smell of burned rubber.

'Get in, get in, get in!' Michael shouted, as bullets began to whirr and ping against the armoured car.

Geoff didn't need telling twice, hauling open the rear door and all but throwing Gavin onto the back seat. He jumped in, slamming the door so fast that he almost caught his own foot before it was fully inside.

'Go!' he told Michael, and fell back against the seat as the savage acceleration pushed him down. 'Everyone clear out,' he ordered, on the off-chance that they were too stubborn to know a lost cause when they saw it. 'Regroup at the penthouse, and for fuck's sake no one else get shot!'

'Gotcha.'

'Will do.'

'Wilco, boss.'

Ryan, Ray and Jack were quick to reply, and he felt a little of the tension leave him at their agreement. None of them were trapped, and they hadn't all arrived in the Roosevelt. Ryan and Jack both had cars, and he didn't doubt that they could escape easily enough. Barring a tremendous stroke of bad luck, they would all make it home.

'Nice work, Michael,' he said, shooting a weak grin at the redhead in the front seat. He hadn't had time in the moment to wonder why Michael wasn't shooting, but in hindsight he could see the wisdom in going to get the car. Armoured cover went a long way in any firefight.

'I'm gonna fucking murder Trevor,' Michael spat, eyes fixed on the road. 'My wiring was fine, I swear to god. That redneck fuck sold me dud sticky bombs.'

'Fucking cockbite,' Geoff said, angry on Michael's behalf as much as because their mission had gone to hell. 'You and Ryan can go for a visit, make sure he doesn't do it again.'

'It'll be a fucking pleasure,' Michael agreed. They hit a clear stretch of road and he glanced back, frowning at the bloody shreds of Geoff's suit pants.

'You ok, boss?'

Geoff nodded. 'I don't think any of them are deep.' 

The initial sharp pain had settled into a dull throb in time with his heart, and though it hurt like hell when he flexed his calves, it didn't feel like anything was too badly torn.

_Thank fuck for Jack, and for shitty grenade throws that fall short,_ he thought.

Gavin was oddly quiet, and he turned to find him slumped back in his seat, looking pale and shocked. His leg was still bleeding, but he hadn't made any move to staunch the wound.

'Hey, asshole, pay attention,' Geoff said, shoving his arm.

Gavin turned slightly and looked at him, though Geoff didn't think his glassy eyes were actually seeing much.

_That grenade must've knocked him stupid,_ he thought, reaching under the seat and pulling out a first aid kit.

'We'll get Jack to have a proper look, but in the meantime you could at least stop bleeding all over Michael's car,' he said, slapping a big gauze pad around Gavin's calf and holding it tightly in place with a roll of bandage. It was quick and dirty, but it only had to hold until they got home.

'Hypocrite,' Michael muttered, glancing back at Geoff's legs again.

'Shut up, asshole, I'll give you a cleaning bonus in your next paycheck.'

*

When they pulled into the garage a few minutes later, Michael helped Gavin out of the car and into the elevator, snapping at Geoff to mind his own injuries when he tried to help.  
Jack's blue Zentorno pulled in just as the doors were closing, and Geoff stuck his hand out to hold the elevator for her.

'Ryan and Ray ok?' he asked, as she jogged over to them.

'Shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes behind me,' she said. 'Christ, what a mess. What happened, Michael?'

Michael growled, tightening his grip on Gavin until he gasped.

'Trevor's fucking dead,' he said darkly.

'Oh,' Jack said, without needing him to explain further. Ever practical, she turned her attention to Gavin and Geoff. 'Looks like Gav's leg is worse,' she said, as the elevator arrived at the penthouse with a soft ding. 'You can start swabbing your shins with antiseptic while I check him out.'

'I can't wait,' Geoff said, rolling his eyes.

He trailed Jack, Michael and Gavin into the massive main bathroom, wincing at the soft, pained noise Gavin made when Michael sat him down on the side of the tub and went off to make coffee.

There was blood on Gavin's shirt under his arm, blue fabric stained almost black, and Geoff frowned at the sight of it.

'You're wearing your vest, right Gav?' he asked.

Gavin didn't answer, staring glassy eyed at the wall. His breathing was shallow, and it suddenly occurred to Geoff that he hadn't said a word since they got in the car.

'Hey buddy, everything ok?'

He crouched down in front of Gavin, tilting his chin with one hand, trying to get Gavin to acknowledge him. It wouldn't be the first time that one of them had been left shocked silly or mostly deaf in the wake of an explosion. Gavin looked at him, but didn't speak, just locked onto Geoff with wide green eyes.

'Were you hit anywhere else?' Geoff asked, not really expecting an answer.

Sure enough, Gavin said nothing, just kept breathing fast and shallow.

'Ok, let's get your shirt off and have a look,' Geoff said, starting to undo the buttons. His hand brushed against a cold, hard lump caught in the cloth, and after a moment his fingers recognised the shape of a bullet crushed against armour.

'And this is why we wear vests,' he murmured, brushing over it and going back to the buttons. A few inches lower, he found another bullet.

'Jesus, dude, how many did you catch?' Geoff asked incredulously, wondering if Gavin wasn't talking because his ribs were so bruised that it hurt to speak. 

When he got Gavin's shirt open and saw no less than seven bullets crushed into the heavy armour he cursed aloud.

The left side of his shirt peeled away wet and sticky, revealing a bullet graze just above the line of the armour that looked messy, but not life threatening. Still, Gavin wasn't talking, couldn't tell them if anything else had got through his vest, and Geoff was getting paranoid.

'Jack, help me get his vest off,' he said, pulling at the first velcro tab.

Gavin groaned between gritted teeth at the slight pull, making Geoff wince.

'Sorry, bud, gotta get this off and check you over.'

They worked as carefully as they could, peeling back the tabs and loosening the armour bit by bit. Gavin made a choked, pained noise at every movement, tears welling in his eyes, and as the vest loosened he seemed to sag.

'Sorry, Gav, sorry, just a couple more, we've got you,' Geoff promised, heart in his throat as they unwrapped Gavin like a dropped Christmas present, not sure how broken the contents were until the wrapping was gone.

Gavin was shaking by the time his vest was loose, breath ragged and, to Geoff's ears, worryingly wet.

'Arms up a bit, Gav,' Jack said, and lifted the vest to pull it over the lad's head.

Gavin let out a thin, agonised noise and fought her, trying to keep his arms at his sides.

'Sorry, sorry,' Jack said, but didn't stop. Geoff could see his own concern mirrored in her eyes. Gavin's reactions weren't right, and they desperately needed to see what was under his armour.

The vest came off suddenly, Gavin's arms jerking, and he all but collapsed against Geoff. He made a horrible, wet choking noise, and suddenly there was blood pouring out of his mouth.

Geoff held him up, staring in horror at the solid purple-black mass of bruises spread across his bared chest, sick to his stomach at the warm, slimy feeling of Gavin's blood as he choked it out all over Geoff.

'Jesus Christ!' Jack said, throwing the vest aside and tilting Gavin's head forward, trying to help him clear his mouth.

'Michael! Michael!' Geoff screamed.

There was a clatter in the hall, and Michael, Ryan and Ray all burst in at once.

'Get him to Caleb, now!' Geoff ordered, shoving Gavin's limp form at them with more haste than care. Whatever was wrong, it was far beyond Jack's ability to fix, and Gavin didn't seem likely to last much longer.

They looked appalled at the scene, but none of them argued. Michael ran for the elevator, holding the doors open.

Gavin screamed as Ryan picked him up, a thin, animal sound that came out in a fine mist of blood. Ryan cradled him close, and before the droplets of blood could settle they were gone.

Geoff meant to follow, but he caught sight of Gavin's blood coating his hands and all at once it was too much. His legs gave out, dumping him on the floor with a bone-jarring crash.

There had been so much blood. The armour had literally been holding Gavin together, and they had pulled it off, like tearing off a snail's shell and watching it writhe and die.  
Once that thought had entered his head, Geoff couldn't get rid of it. It wasn't far to Caleb's clinic, but what if it was too far? What if Gavin died because it had taken Geoff far too long to notice that there was more wrong with him than shock and a bullet in the leg? What if that horrible, agonised cry was the last sound he ever heard Gavin make?

There was blood smeared thickly down the tiled side of the tub, and Geoff couldn't stop staring at it, reliving the awful, slick feeling of Gavin coughing warm blood all over his front. His red-stained hands were cradled to his chest, fingers curled into claws in revulsion as the blood began to set and turn sticky. The left over adrenaline was starting to curdle in his stomach, leaving him shaky and sick, and he couldn't seem to get enough air into his lungs.

_Gav couldn't breathe,_ he thought, devastatingly aware of how that must have felt, trying to breathe and panicking as his lungs filled with blood, too badly hurt to even ask for help. _God, how long was he choking? How long did we take to fucking notice?_

He was dimly aware that his legs hurt with a dull, enduring burn, like he was holding them just out of reach of a flame, but he couldn't bring himself to move. He knew he'd be able to breathe more easily if he wasn't crunched into a ball, his arms and legs curled into his chest, but he couldn't physically make his body respond, too lost in the horror of Gavin's blood bright and thick on the white tiles.

The elevator was long gone, and most of his crew with it, but he gradually became aware of someone talking. Jack was still in the bathroom with him, and though he couldn't make himself move, he found that little by little he could latch on to her voice, letting it take precedence over the guilt and the memory of Gavin's terrible scream.

'I'm going to have to cut your pants, since I don't think you're in any state to take them off,' she was saying, when Geoff finally managed to make words make sense again. 'They're pretty much wrecked anyway, so don't get mad at me.'

He could feel her tugging at the hems of his pants, hear the scrape-scrape of scissors cutting through cloth, then her quiet curses at the state of his legs.

'That grenade was too fucking close,' she said, swabbing at his right leg with an antiseptic that stung like acid. 'I saw you go down and I swear to god, for a minute I didn't think you'd get up again.' She seemed to consider that for a moment, remembering that Gavin might very well never get up again, and sighed heavily. 'You're a tough son of a bitch, Geoff. I should've known you'd just shake it off and add a few scars to your badass collection.'

They stayed like that on the floor for what felt like an age, Jack talking about nothing in particular as she carefully picked dozens of steel fragments out of Geoff's mercifully shallow wounds.

Geoff couldn't bring himself to respond, couldn't even look away from the terrifying slick of blood on white tile, but in the cage of his own mind he was achingly grateful to her. He knew she must be scared witless that Gavin wasn't going to make it, but she wasn't letting it cripple her. Forever and always, Jack was his rock. He loved his crew dearly, and Gavin was like a son to him, but Jack had been beside him the longest, and at the core of it all, it would always be them against the world.

'I think you're done, Geoff,' Jack said eventually, winding white bandages around his calves with steady hands. 'Hey, it's time to look at me, okay? We've got to go and see how Gav's doing.'

Her fingertips were gentle against his jaw despite their callouses, and it felt less like deliberate force than an inevitable slide as she slowly turned him away from the splattered tiles.

Geoff closed his eyes for a moment, crushed by the weight of his fear, and when he opened them again it was to Jack's familiar face, pale and worried, but very much present and alive.

'There you are,' she said, when he met her eyes. 'Come stand at the sink, let's get your hands clean,' she offered, taking his clawed hand despite the disgusting slick of congealed blood. She hauled him up, catching him as his cramped muscles threatened to collapse, and helped him stagger to the sink.

'Is this what you'll be like in thirty years?' she asked, and it only sounded a little forced.

Geoff huffed, as close to a laugh as he could manage, and she smiled, pleased at getting him to respond even a little.

Hot water and soap washed away most of the clotted blood, leaving only a few traces caked around his nails, but Geoff knew it would be a long time before he forgot what Gavin's blood had felt like on his skin.

He brought his hands up to his face and scrubbed at his cheeks, trying to wash away the tight, hot feeling of sweat and unshed tears, and it helped a little. He cleared his throat and took a shaky breath, turning to look at Jack.

'Thanks,' he said, knowing that it was utterly inadequate but that she understood what he couldn't put into words all the same.

'I haven't heard anything since they left, but no news is good news, right?' Jack said, looking at him with a plea in her eyes.

'Yeah, yeah, it's good news,' he said, not sure even in his own head whether it was a lie.

He stumbled out of the bathroom, making a stop at the bar in the living room to pour himself half a glass of their cheapest, roughest whiskey. He swallowed it in two swift gulps, letting the burn settle him into his skin again. When he turned away, Jack was waiting, her keys in hand. He offered her the bottle wordlessly, but she just shook her head.

'Not yet,' she said.

Geoff nodded and put it back. Maybe they'd all get blackout drunk later, or maybe they'd have a few to celebrate. It was too early to say.

*

Jack drove like a model citizen all the way to Caleb's well-stocked but exceptionally shady clinic. It was more control than Geoff would have shown, but in the end she was right - it was hardly the time to get pulled over on a traffic violation. It would only have sparked a shoot-out with them both already so highly strung.

Ray was lurking outside the clinic when they arrived, leaning on the hood of the Roosevelt and smoking a blunt with the grim determination of a man in dire need of distraction. Geoff could sympathise. Dread had settled heavily in his stomach, and he was already beginning to wish that he had drunk more than half a glass of whiskey before they left.

'News?' he asked, as soon as he was out of the car.

Ray shook his head.

'He's in surgery, man,' he said, his voice raw from keeping smoke in his lungs. He held it for another ten seconds before finally letting it curl out of his mouth, blue-grey and heavy.

'Michael and Ryan?' Jack asked.

Ray waved at the clinic door. 'They're waiting. So am I, but the nurses get real funny about people smoking in there, even if it's just weed.'

'Totally unreasonable,' Geoff said, trying for levity. It was a little wobbly, but he thought it was passable, given the circumstances.

They left Ray to finish his smoke, pulling open the mirrored doors and entering the cool, sterile-scented halls of the clinic. It was the best in Los Santos, at least for the kind of people who paid cash and didn't want anyone asking inconvenient questions. Caleb was an actual surgeon, and all his staff had proper medical training, though usually not from the US. The Fake AH had had them all on payroll for years, made sure their equipment was top of the line, and there were perks to being the kings. When Jack and Geoff reached the front desk, the duty nurse ushered them into a private waiting room with its own coffee machine and left them alone, rather than chiding them for their bloody clothes and trying to make them leave. 

Ryan and Michael were already there, sprawled in well-padded chairs, trying to look more like people calmly waiting for news and less like barely caged tigers.

'Nothing?' Geoff said, when the door had closed behind the nurse.

Ryan shook his head. The front of his jacket had been hastily wiped down, but it was still obvious that it had been recently covered in blood.

'It'll be a while. Honestly, longer might be better. If they come out of surgery any time soon, it'll be because...'

He didn't need to say more. Geoff nodded jerkily and sat down, trying not to fixate on his hands again.

'What the fuck even happened?' Michael asked, looking at Jack. She had the most medical training, though it wasn't much more than field trauma care.

Jack shook her head, unsure. 'He was shot, but the vest caught the bullets. It looked like the blunt force ruptured something.'

'Seven,' Geoff said faintly. 'Seven fucking bullets in the front of his vest. Another grazed the edge, and one actually hit him in the leg.'

'Thank fucking Christ the idiot always remembers his armour,' Michael said, clenching his fists convulsively.

'Yeah,' Geoff said. None of them would say it, but they were all thinking the same thing: It might not have been enough to save him.

*

It was hours before there was any news, and Geoff spent most of it in silence, not moving from his chair. The blood under his nails had gone brown and flaky, and he couldn't stop picking at it, short, jerky movements that were almost involuntary. His mind felt grey, as if guilt and fear were a heavy fog smothering his ability to think of anything but the same looped regrets. What if Michael's charges had worked? What if Geoff had noticed sooner that there was something wrong? What if he had handled Gavin just a little more gently?

The rest of the crew moved listlessly around the room, making cups of coffee that they never drank, staring blankly at their phones as texts came in, mundane updates on everyday business that seemed utterly irrelevant. Ray drifted in and out, his eyes glassy and bloodshot, the smell of smoke heavy in his clothes, but the weed barely seemed to be relaxing him at all. None of them spoke, all caught in the same limbo as they waited for someone to tell them whether their lives would go on, or come to a crashing halt.

The door finally opened in the late evening, Caleb stepping into the waiting room in rumpled scrubs, his bright eyes tired and heavy.

All their attention was immediately fixed on the young surgeon.

'He's stable. We've moved him to the ICU to begin recovery.'

'Thank you Jesus,' Ray said, turning his face blearily to the sky.

'What happened to him?' Ryan asked.

'You said he was shot?' Caleb said. 'Rifle rounds, at close range?'

'Seven shots, but he was wearing a vest,' Geoff said.

Caleb nodded. 'You know that only spreads the force. In this case, instead of killing him outright the rounds did a number on his ribcage. His sternum was cracked by multiple impacts, several of his ribs breaking and separating, and there must have been a sharp impact that pushed all those jagged ends into his lungs.'

Geoff went cold, remembering Gavin flattened under him, gasping as the grenade went off.

'I landed on him,' he said, and the words tasted like acid. 

He immediately felt as though he was going to be sick, and as his crew stared at him in horror, the bile rose up. He barely made it to the trashcan before the whiskey made its comeback, burning horribly as he vomited it up.

'He's okay though, right?' Ray asked, resolutely ignoring Geoff's pained retching.

Caleb hesitated. 'He's comatose but stable.'

Geoff wiped the back of his hand across his stinging lips and looked up.

'That's not the same thing. What about after he wakes up?' he asked, all too familiar with carefully worded truths.

Caleb took a deep breath. It took a lot of guts to tell a notorious crimelord to shut up and take his meds, but he had done it many times over the years. If he was hesitating, it wasn't good news. Geoff's stomach rolled all over again.

'Do you want to step outside, Geoff, or am I talking to the whole crew?' he asked.

'Fuck off, Caleb, you're not keeping secrets right now,' Michael said at once, his teeth bared.

'You're talking to all of us,' Geoff confirmed.

Caleb nodded. 'He's not going to be okay,' he said flatly. 'Half his ribcage is held together with titanium, and contrary to what you learned from Wolverine, that doesn't make it stronger. It could break again, and there'll be a lot of very sharp edges if it does. There's going to be major scarring on his lungs. He's going to have breathing problems and increased susceptibility to respiratory infections for the rest of his life. And I hate to say it, but that's the best case scenario. The worst case is that he won't wake up at all.'

It felt like a blow to the chest, felt like being knocked back by a powerful explosion. Nothing else Geoff had ever gone through had stolen his breath so completely.

'Jesus Christ,' Jack said, hiding her face in her hands. 

Ray and Michael looked confused, as if it was impossible for their fellow lad not to bounce back to his usual self, even if it took a while. They were young, new to loss, and until that moment they had believed they were invincible. Accidents weren't supposed to have long term consequences, no matter how serious they were.

Ryan looked terribly sad, and Geoff remembered that the Vagabond had run with the RVB before they lost their leaders, one killed and one crippled. The crew hadn't lasted after that, and Ryan knew perhaps better than all of them what it was like to lose someone even though they were still alive. Gavin wasn't ever going to be the man they knew again.

Geoff realised that Caleb was still standing there, waiting for them to focus on him, and he forced himself to speak, his own voice hollow in his ears.

'Can we see him?'

Caleb hummed unhappily. 'As I said, he's in a medically induced coma. He looks pretty bad, and he won't know you're there right now. You can't even go inside, just look at him through the window of the ICU. It might be better for you to wait until he's in his own room.'

Michael was shaking his head before Caleb had even finished speaking.

'Fuck that, I want to see him,' he said stubbornly.

'Anyone who wants to see him can visit now, but we're not staying,' Geoff decided. 'We'll get out of the way, just leave one of us on guard, and come back when he actually wakes up.'

There shouldn't be any need for a guard, Caleb's clinic was a strictly held neutral zone, but Geoff couldn't bear the idea of none of them being there if Gavin got worse.

Michael looked unhappy, on the brink of shouting that no one could tell him to leave, but Geoff met his eyes steadily.

'Gavin's not really here right now,' he said firmly. 'We're just in the way.'

Michael paused, and eventually subsided, looking somehow smaller than before as Geoff's words sank in.

They filed quietly down the hall, stopping in a row outside the ICU like felons in a line-up. Someone had plainly had the same thought before - the classic black height lines were painted on the opposite wall, someone's pitch-black idea of a joke.

Gavin was the only one inside, but he was still barely visible. The ventilator hid most of his face, and tubes and drains poked out of him like grotesque streamers, leading up to bags of blood and antibiotics and down to the fluid bag hung from the side of the bed. He was skinny at the best of times, but Geoff didn't think he had ever looked so frail.

Jack looked at him for barely a minute before she looked away, shaking her head.

Geoff understood how she felt. It wasn't Gavin in there, not in all the ways that mattered.

'Let's go,' he said. 'Ray, you're the only one with no blood on your clothes. You okay to stay for a while?'

Ray nodded, leaning back against the wall with all the loose grace of a sniper. Geoff knew he could stay there without moving all night if he had to.

'I'll come by in a few hours and trade out,' he promised.

'Like hell,' Ryan said. 'You're injured too. I'll trade out.'

Geoff wanted to argue, but he couldn't find the will. He was tired and sick and hurting, and deep down he knew he didn't want to see Gavin until he looked more like a person and less like a failed science experiment, the cruel result of Geoff's mistakes. Unable to argue, he just nodded and turned away.

*

The penthouse was dead silent that night. All of them had gone to their rooms, too weary to bother eating, too heartsick to want to talk. Knowing that Gavin's best outlook was still a disaster left a heavy pall in the air, and Geoff couldn't help but feel that the others blamed him. Not just as their leader, the one who had wanted to make an example of the Lost, but as the one who had personally crushed the life out of Gavin.

Geoff feared that he would lie awake all night, but the demands of his own injured body outweighed his mental turmoil. He fell asleep within minutes of lying down, and slept until almost noon of the following day.

For a few glorious moments after he awoke, he didn't remember anything that had happened, but when he moved his bandaged legs the pain brought a terrible cascade of memories.

He curled onto his side, breathless with the weight of his guilt, wishing that there was some way to turn back the clock. There was nothing he could imagine that could be worse. Either Gavin would die, and Geoff would have killed him, or Gavin would be crippled, and they would both have to live with knowing it was Geoff's fault. Gavin might never want to see him again.

There was a tap on his door as he lay wrapped in misery and expensive sheets. He didn't answer, but Jack walked in anyway, seeing his huddled shape and sighing. She folded her arms and stared down at him, unmoving. Geoff tried to ignore her, but as the minutes stretched the weight of her gaze grew too heavy to bear.

'Fuck off, Jack,' he muttered into his pillow, unwilling to so much as lift his head.

'Four little words, Ramsey: It's Not My Fault. I'm not moving until I hear them,' Jack said flatly.

Geoff's gut clenched to hear her say it wasn't his fault, but he couldn't bring himself to believe it. He said nothing, and Jack didn't move, just kept staring until his discomfort outweighed the urge to hide.

'I fucking landed on him, Jack,' he said, throwing back the sheets and covering his face with his hands. 'I might as well have stabbed him with his own ribs.'

'And if you hadn't he'd have blown up. Jesus, Geoff, you did what you had to!' Jack said, unfolding her arms at last. 'None of us blame you. It was a shit-show from the moment Michael's bombs failed, and you went in under fire to get Gav out. When he wakes up he's going to thank you for that.'

'If he wakes up,' Geoff mumbled into his hands, a hollow pain in his chest at the thought.

Jack raised one immaculately manicured foot and heel-kicked him in the stomach.

Geoff curled up, groaning.

' _When_ Gav wakes up,' she repeated, daring him to argue again.

'When,' Geoff wheezed, knowing when he was beaten.

'Good start,' Jack said. 'Now, step two. Is it your fault that Gavin got hurt?'

Geoff hesitated. He would have loved to take her easy absolution, but it was hard to ignore the heavy, hollow feeling in his chest.

Jack sighed and raised her foot again, winding up for a harder kick.

'It's not my fault,' Geoff said all in a rush, and found to his surprise that it helped a little to say it, even under duress.

'Hey, progress,' Jack said. 'Now get up. The city doesn't stop just because you want to hide under the covers. You have a meeting with the Colombians in an hour.'

Geoff groaned. 'Fuck me,' he said, dragging his hand down his face, fingers catching on a couple of days worth of rough stubble. He hated those meetings at the best of times. 'Send Lindsay instead.'

Jack hummed. 'I could do that,' she agreed. 'But then you'd stay here and marinate in guilt and whiskey all day, and I can't fucking deal with that right now.'

Geoff felt a whole different kind of guilt at that, recognising that he wasn't the only one scared shitless for Gavin. It wasn't fair to make Jack worry about him on top of everything else.

'There better be fucking pancakes,' he said, grudgingly pushing himself upright and groaning as his legs protested.

'Shower and dress in twenty minutes and there will be,' Jack promised, sounding intensely relieved to see him getting up.

* 

Gavin remained in a medically induced coma for six days, and Caleb assured them that he was progressing as expected. Geoff couldn't bring himself to go back to the clinic, but neither was he allowed to hide himself away. Jack successfully kicked his ass the entire time, derailing his every attempt to send Lindsay or Kerry to deal with business in his place. Usually, their second-string members did almost as much work as the core six, but Jack seemed determined to keep Geoff too busy to stew, or to lie awake at night. 

By the time Caleb called and said they were going to bring Gavin out of his coma, the Fake AH Crew's hold over Los Santos was stronger than ever. Much as it stung, Geoff had to admit that business had never run so smoothly.

He went down to the clinic in the afternoon, when Caleb had said Gavin might first wake up. The Roosevelt was still parked outside, almost a permanent fixture as the crew ducked in and out at all hours. Word had spread within the first day that one of the Fake AH was laid up, seriously hurt, but anyone who might have thought that left them short-handed had been swiftly proven wrong. Jack and Ray had apparently thoroughly enjoyed the chance to let off a little steam against small-time gangbangers stupid enough to push their luck.

When Geoff got to the ICU he found Ryan and Michael playing blackjack for pennies in the corridor, sitting in two chairs they had dragged out of the private waiting room. He had been expecting Ray, but the youngest lad was nowhere to be seen.

'I didn't think you two were here,' Geoff told them. 'I saw you go off together this morning, thought you might have gone up to Sandy Shores to have a _word_ with Trevor.'

Michael shrugged. 'Thought about it. Kinda want to wait and see what Gav has to say about it, though, since he's the one Trevor really fucked over.'

Ryan hummed. 'Personally I'm in favour of pulling his lungs out, Viking style, but we'll see what Gavin wants.'

Geoff's heart clenched. They both sounded so certain that they would be able to speak to Gavin soon. Caleb was apparently cautiously optimistic as well, but Geoff found it hard not to expect some new disaster. The slow revelation of Gavin's real injuries had left him expecting unpleasant surprises at every turn.

Looking into the ICU he found that Gavin still looked small and swamped in medical equipment, but the ventilator had been replaced with an oxygen mask and a few of the drainage tubes were gone. He wasn't quite as inhuman-looking as before, but he still had a long way to go before he'd look like himself again.

'Anything yet?' he asked.

'Dick,' Ryan said. 'Caleb said to give it a few more hours before we start getting worried, though. People wake up when they're good and ready.'

Geoff sighed, resigning himself to a long wait. 'Deal me in?'

*

Gavin took his sweet time, but by midnight he'd woken up, passed Caleb's cognitive tests and been moved to a private room to continue his recovery. To everyone's relief, that meant they could finally visit him properly, sitting within touching distance instead of on the wrong side of a glass wall.

The crew trooped in, tense and quiet, and Geoff felt faint with relief when Gavin tracked their movements and reacted to their presence with a faint wave of his fingers.  
There was still an oxygen mask over his face, and Caleb had warned them not to stress Gavin out or expect him to talk, but it was enough to see him awake and responsive. Geoff's last memories of Gavin had been of glassy, unseeing eyes and far too much blood, and it was a relief to see that even with the heavy painkillers he had been given, Gavin seemed to know where he was.

Michael was the first to break the silence.

'You're a real piece of shit,' he said, trying for fake seriousness and ending up closer to raw honesty. 'I knew you were lazy, but a six day nap? What the fuck, boi?'

Gavin made a faint wheezing noise that might have been a laugh, and Michael collapsed into one of the chairs with a sigh, reaching out to touch Gavin's hand.

'Not fucking cool,' Michael said, shaking his head, but when Gavin turned his hand over Michael took it at once, squeezing his fingers gently.

The rest of them slid into chairs around the bed, not really needing to talk. It was good enough at first to just be there together. Geoff wouldn't have known what to say anyway. Gavin was still too drugged up for a serious conversation, and he knew there were going to be some very difficult discussions ahead, as Gavin came back to himself and realised that he wasn't quite whole and well.

'So, funny story,' Geoff said, when Gavin turned his drowsy eyes on him. 'You know that dealer on the corner of fifth and Lincoln? Turns out the guy's been selling oregano to rich college kids, and the dumb shits couldn't tell.'

'He tried the same shit on me,' Ray chimed in. 'Let's just say I'm not as gullible as I look.'

That sparked a conversation about the dumbest drug fails they'd ever seen, and to Geoff's relief Gavin seemed content to lie there and listen, smiling faintly behind his oxygen mask. He was drifting in and out pretty frequently, and Geoff was sure he wasn't going to remember a damn thing they'd said, but that wasn't the point. They were there with him, and dumb, pointless conversations were situation normal for the crew. He had just wanted Gavin to feel like there was something familiar around him, and it seemed to have worked. For the moment, it would have to be enough.

*

That first night was a strangely happy memory, after the long days when they hadn't been sure that Gavin would wake up at all. It seemed that it was all downhill after that, as Gavin's pain medication was scaled back and he became alert enough to fret and resent his own weakness.

Geoff was sitting beside Gavin's bed alone when he first decided to question what had actually happened, and it might have been the hardest conversation he'd ever had.

'Chest doesn't feel right, Geoff,' Gavin said, in the whisper that was all he could manage. 'I remember Jack shouting grenade, and falling. Don't remember anything after.'

Geoff clenched his hands convulsively. It would do him no good to lie, but he wished to god he didn't have to answer.

'You remember being shot, right?' he began.

Gavin nodded. 'Fuckin' hurt, even with the vest.'

Geoff swallowed. 'I bet it did, buddy. You had a cracked sternum and a bunch of broken ribs. And when Jack warned us about the grenade, I shoved you over and landed on you. I didn't know your ribs were damaged, so I ended up making it a lot worse.'

'Didn't get blown up?' Gavin said, frowning.

Geoff swallowed again, feeling like his tongue was swelling up to choke him. 'No, it was my fault. The grenade didn't touch you, but I crushed your chest, pushed all the broken bits of rib into your lungs. I nearly killed you,' he finished, voice cracking with pure misery.

Gavin didn't say anything for a long while, just frowned, looking at Geoff as though trying to understand why someone he trusted would have hurt him so badly.

Geoff felt like his heart had torn open, wrecked by that childish look of hurt and confusion. He would have given anything to trade places with Gavin, anything at all to stop Gavin looking like Geoff had betrayed him.

'I'm so sorry Gav,' he said at last, unable to meet Gavin's eyes any longer. 'I'll go now. Jack will come and sit with you, okay?'

He didn't wait for an answer, just squeezed Gavin's hand gently and let go, pushing himself out of his chair and all but fleeing the room.

He shot a quick text to Jack, telling her he'd been called away, and drove directly to the nearest shitty bar.

'I'll take two bottles of whatever cheap shit whiskey you've got that burns like a motherfucker,' he told the bartender. 'And there's an extra hundred in it if you don't fucking bother me.'

Judging by the look on the woman's face, she knew who he was, but she could also clearly recognise a man in desperate need of drowning his sorrows without well-meaning interruptions.

She pulled two large bottles of some shitty imported whiskey off the bottom shelf and wordlessly traded them for a couple of hundreds. It was far more than the booze was worth, but what the fuck did Geoff care? He felt her eyes on him as he sloped off into the darkest corner of the room, but she didn't try and talk to him, and at that moment he didn't give a fuck if she was judging him. He cared what Gavin thought of him, and Gavin thought he was a fucking monster. Everything beyond that was irrelevant.

The booze smelled like paint thinner when he cracked it open, and the first long gulp burned like battery acid. It tasted like penance, tasted like nothing less than he deserved, and he forced it down in reckless gulps that nearly made him sick.

Half the bottle was gone before the first buzz hit, and after that the dim room very quickly began to blur. He couldn't see five feet in front of him, but somehow he could still see Gavin's troubled face, still feel the desperate pain in his heart. Clearly, he needed to keep drinking.

One bottle down, and Gavin was staring at Geoff with that horrible, heartbroken face, blood pouring from his mouth.

It took him a solid minute to crack open the second bottle, hands shaking like he was midway through a seizure, but he managed it eventually. He slumped down against the wall, cradling the bottle, not quite ready to lift it to his lips, and let his own misery swamp him, blackly pondering whether Gavin would even say goodbye before he left forever. But that didn't make sense, did it? Gavin hadn't done anything wrong. He should be able to pick up the pieces of his life as best he could with his friends around him. Geoff was the one who should leave.

_When I've finished my drink I'll leave,_ he told himself, lifting the second bottle and taking a swallow, glass clunking painfully against his teeth as his hand shook. _Just got to finish my drink first._

He got halfway down the bottle like that, thinking of all the things he was going to lose, the people who he would so desperately miss, and reminding himself that he deserved every moment of loneliness ahead.

_I should go before Jack comes to shout at me for hurting Gavin all over again,_ he thought. Part of him wished she would, wished she would physically beat him until his body was as wrecked as his soul, but at the same time he didn't want to have to face her.

_Gonna miss you so much_ , he thought, a fresh pang of pain in his heart as he thought of leaving Jack behind. They'd been together so long, but of course she would stay with Gavin. Geoff was a piece of shit who nearly killed his own best friend.

He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, the bottle swinging precariously from his hand, and staggered toward the door. In the early afternoon the bar was deserted, no one but the bartender to witness his clumsy exit.

_Wouldn't matter if it was full. Let them all remember Geoff Ramsey like this. Bury my name forever._

He dropped the bottle as he was trying to find his keys, fumbling at the too-many pockets of his stupid showy suit. It didn't matter, he didn't deserve any more drink anyway. It had long since stopped burning his tongue.

Somehow he found his keys and got the car started. The rumble of the engine immediately reminded him of Sunday drives through the Vinewood Hills, Gavin singing jubilantly along to god-awful pop songs on the radio, and he wondered if Gavin would ever have the breath to sing like that again. 

A moment later he was sobbing, the dam breaking without any warning at all. He let his head rest on the steering wheel and howled, pure misery like a black hole in his chest. Gavin hated him, was right to hate him, and the glory days of the Fake AH Crew were over. Geoff had destroyed everything they had worked so hard to build, and worst of all he had betrayed his friends.

Bile rose up in his throat, and he pushed open the door and vomited stinging, acidic booze into the dirt of the parking lot.

When he felt as though his body had been flayed raw, turned inside out, he closed the door and turned off the engine, unable to bear the memories it evoked. Shaking and cold, he curled up in his seat and closed his eyes, exhausted by the force of his own pain.

_Just rest a minute, and then I'll leave,_ he told himself. _Just a little rest._

He fell asleep with tears still wet on his face.

*

When he woke up, head pounding, stomach rolling, he didn't know where he was. It was dark, and it took him a moment to realise that he was sitting in his own car. He turned the key in the ignition and started driving out of pure muscle memory, heading home on auto-pilot. He was halfway there when the memory of his last conversation with Gavin came rolling back, and he nearly swerved into traffic. Horns blared, and he yanked the wheel over, getting back into his lane. He kept turning, pulled over to the side of the road and sat, shaking in his seat as the passing headlights washed over him in waves.

The first flush of self-loathing had passed, and despite the beginnings of a crushing hangover he knew he couldn't actually leave. He had responsibilities in Los Santos, and nowhere else to go. 

Still, he could leave Gavin be, let him try to heal in peace. There was no need for Gavin to see him again until he left the clinic, and when that day came, Geoff could always move out of the penthouse. They had other places in the city.

With his course settled, Geoff pulled back onto the road and drove back to the penthouse, resigning himself to keeping his head down and staying out of the way.

*

The plan worked, up to a point. So far as the crew were concerned, he was just too busy to go to the clinic. He asked them for updates every day or so, glad to hear that Gavin was getting stronger, but whenever they suggested he visit, he fobbed them off, feeling like shit every time.

'Maybe tomorrow. I've got a coke shipment coming in tonight.' 

'Not right now, there's some money missing and I need to track it down.'

'It's late, dude, I don't want to wake him.'

All of them gave him funny looks at one point or another, but in the end he was the boss of a major crime network. It wasn't unbelievable that he just had a lot going on.  
It had been three weeks since he'd last seen Gavin when his avoidance tactics stopped working.

His phone rang early in the morning, and he answered without looking, expecting a call from Kdin.

'Ramsey.'

'Geoff?' Gavin's voice wasn't just a whisper any more. It was close to his old tone, except for the underlying wheeze.

Geoff's heart clenched. He turned his face into his pillow and wished he hadn't picked up.

'What can I do for you?' he asked, steady and professional. He had long since mastered the art of sounding perfectly put together over the phone no matter what was happening.

'You haven't been around in a while,' Gavin said, sounding hurt.

Geoff sighed. God only knew why Gavin would want him there. Perhaps he was hoping Geoff had some explanation for crippling him. Geoff only wished he did.

'I'm busy, that's all. I hear you're doing better.'

'Not gonna get much better than this,' Gavin said, bitter and sad. 'I'm coming home tomorrow.'

Geoff squeezed his eyes shut. So that was it.

'I'll move up to Vinewood, don't worry,' he promised, heart aching. There'd been a growing gulf between him and the others anyway, as they focussed on Gavin's recovery and he endeavoured to stay away. It wouldn't be too great a step to lose the quiet morning moments, or the company in the evenings.

'What?' Gavin asked, sounding confused.

'I'll make sure I don't bother you. You didn't have to call, Gavin, I'm sure someone would have told me. I have to go, Kdin's meant to check in soon.'

He hung up and tossed the phone onto the bed, hiding his face in the pillow and fighting the urge to cry. Even with the recent awkward moments, dancing around the others, the penthouse was familiar and comforting. It had been his home, their home, for a long time. The safe-house in the hills was just a shell. They'd never spent enough time there for it to hold much personality, and it was going to be very quiet there alone. Still, if he and Gavin couldn't be in the same place, he wasn't going to make Gavin be the one to leave. Geoff was the one in the wrong.

He got up, too restless to try and doze until Kdin's call. After his shower he took the shampoo out of the bathroom with him and started packing. The Vinewood house was furnished, and they had clothes there, but it wouldn't hurt to have a few familiar things with him.

By the time Kdin checked in, confirming that a budding threat out in Blaine County had been taken care of, Geoff was dressed and packed.

'Nice work, bud,' he said, making his way to the elevator. 'Take your time getting back. See a movie, hunt some deer, whatever. You've earned some R & R.'

'Thanks boss,' Kdin said, and hung up.

Geoff tucked his phone away and went down to the garage, dumping his bag in the passenger seat of his Bifta. It was a nice day, and he wanted to let the wind blow away some of the heavy fog of misery he couldn't seem to shake.

The drive was pleasant, fresh wind ruffling his hair, but as soon as he pulled up outside the house in the hills he felt his mood darken again.

It was a very modern, very expensive property. Half the people in Los Santos would chew their own leg off to have it, but it didn't have the lived-in feel of the downtown penthouse. When Geoff punched in the code and went inside, the place was spotless, almost sterile. No abandoned purple hoodie on the back of the couch. No half-dismantled guns on the dining room table. No lingering smell of food or noise of other people coexisting in the same space.

_Your fault, Ramsey. Fucking live with it,_ he reminded himself, and went to drop his bag in one of the six blank bedrooms.

There was no fresh food, but the cupboards in the kitchen were stocked with tins and cartons, and he didn't have much of an appetite anyway. He washed out the coffee pot and set it going, sitting at the breakfast bar and staring gloomily out over the infinity pool and the beautiful view of the city. The bubble of the coffee pot was the only sound in the house, until he heard the beep of someone entering a code at the front door.

He half turned when Ryan walked in, wondering what had brought him to the isolated house, but too listless to really care.

Ryan stopped on the other side of the breakfast bar and folded his arms, staring at Geoff as though he was a particularly interesting puzzle.

'There seems to have been a breakdown in communications,' he said.

'No, Kdin called in fine. I told him to take his time getting back. He's worked really hard lately.'

'Yeah, and so have you,' Ryan said, and it kind of stung how he made that sound like a bad thing.

'Scuse me for doing my job,' he said, and turned away to pour himself a cup of coffee. He didn't offer one to Ryan.

'There's doing your job, and then there's not getting to the clinic in three weeks to see your friend who nearly fucking died,' Ryan said. 'Seems to me there's a difference, and we oughta have noticed that earlier.'

'Gavin's coming home tomorrow. He told me this morning.'

'Yeah, and you told him not to worry, you'd move up to Vinewood. I was with him when he called you.'

Geoff nodded absently. That explained why Ryan had turned up.

'Why the fuck are you moving to Vinewood just as we finally get Gavin back? He's coming home, but you're not _at_ home, Geoff.'

Geoff sighed, too tired for the conversation Ryan wanted to have. 'Go away, Ryan.'

'No. What're you gonna do, make me?'

The very idea of physically forcing Ryan to leave, maybe hurting him in the process, made Geoff go cold. He flinched, and Ryan's eyes widened.

'So that _is_ it. You still think it's your fault.'

'It is my fault,' Geoff snapped. 'Gavin and I can both agree on that. So he gets to try and put the pieces back together as much as possible, and I stay the fuck out of the way.'

'Have you even spoken to Gavin about this?' Ryan asked, not backing down an inch despite Geoff's bad mood.

'Of course I have. How else would I know he blames me?'

'You spoke to him the last time you saw him? Three weeks ago?' Ryan asked, and when Geoff nodded jerkily he groaned aloud. 'Geoff, he was barely coherent back then! You seriously think he never wants to see you again based on something he said when he was pumped full of drugs?'

'No,' Geoff said. Gavin hadn't said anything. The look on his face had said it all.

'He misses you, you fucking idiot,' Ryan said, leaning on the breakfast bar and glowering at Geoff. 'He's been asking for you this entire time, and we kept telling him you were busy, because you kept telling _us_ you were busy so you could stay away from Gavin because you thought that was what he wanted based on your guilt-fuelled interpretation of something he said or did when he was barely conscious. Jesus Christ, Geoff, your issues must be visible from _space_.'

Geoff looked at him, his mouth slightly open, still stuck on the first thing Ryan had said.

'He misses me?'

'Oh my god, it's like a soap opera in here. Yes, funnily enough, your friend who's going through a really rough time misses you, despite the fact that you blame yourself for him getting hurt. Stop the fucking presses!'

Geoff put his face in his hands, not sure whether to be relieved at that or horrified that he'd been avoiding Gavin during some of the hardest weeks of his life.

'You really need to get your ass downtown and have a conversation with Gav,' Ryan said.

Geoff swallowed, his chest aching with a new and terrible hope. 'Yeah, I think I do.'

*

Gavin's room had changed since Geoff's last visit. Some of the more invasive medical equipment was gone, and though they weren't the kind of people to bring flowers, but there were still touches of long term occupation. Gavin couldn't mix alcohol and pain meds, but there was a makeshift wet bar on top of the cabinet in the corner, no doubt there for the others. Everyone but Geoff had spent long hours with Gavin during his recovery. Gavin's bathrobe was hanging off the hooks on the wall, one of Jack's horribly unfashionable but very comfortable giant cardigans beside it. A soft fleece blanket with a pikachu design that Geoff remembered mocking during movie nights had been laid over the white sheets on the bed, and in place of a more traditional teddy bear there was a stuffed creeper nestled by Gavin's elbow.

Ray was slouched in the chair closest to Gavin's right side, both of them engrossed in a DS game when Geoff walked in. Ray glanced up, and his eyes widened slightly when he saw Geoff.

'Oh boy,' he said, getting to his feet immediately, looking horribly apprehensive. 'I'm outta here. See you later, Gavin.'

He tucked his DS into his pocket and left immediately, the quiet click of the door closing sounding like a gunshot to Geoff.

Gavin closed his DS and looked up at Geoff. He was clean and freshly shaven, evidently capable of getting to the attached bathroom to take care of himself, and Geoff was pleased that he wasn't completely bedridden. There was colour in his cheeks again, and his eyes were bright and focussed, but there was still a cannula tucked under his nose, delivering additional oxygen to counteract the damage to his lungs.

'Hey Gav,' Geoff said, after they had stared at each other for a long, excruciating minute.

'Hey yourself,' Gavin said, sounding just a little wheezy. He opened his arms, and it was pure instinct for Geoff to walk forward and hug him. Usually it would have been almost a tackle, but he couldn't even imagine being that rough any more. He was so, so careful, folding his arms gently around Gavin's shoulders and trembling at his warmth.

'Where've you been?' Gavin asked, when he finally let Geoff back off far enough to see his face. He grabbed Geoff's hand when he tried to retreat too far, and it was clear that he didn't want to risk him leaving again.

Geoff sat down on the edge of a chair, resting his captured hand on the edge of the bed. 

'I didn't think you'd want to see me,' he said, soft and raw. 'I nearly killed you.'

Gavin looked at him, confused, and Geoff had a horrible flash of their last conversation. He didn't think he could stand to relive it.

'I remember you running through a firefight to get to me,' Gavin said, pausing for a heavy breath every few words. 'I remember you shoving me out of the way of a grenade. I don't remember you ever trying to kill me.'

'I wasn't trying to!' Geoff said.

'Then what's the bloody problem?' Gavin asked, with a flash of irritation.

'It's my fault you're here, and that your lungs are fucked, and I'd give _anything_ to fix it, but I can't.' 

'It was an accident, Geoff. Accidents mean you say sorry and move on, and there's bugger all point being guilty about it.' He stared at Geoff. 'And trust me, you look like shite right now, and the guys say they've barely seen you lately, so I know you've been torturing yourself.'

Geoff felt like the weight of relief might crush him.

'How the fuck are you okay about this?' he asked, shaking his head.

Gavin gave a thin laugh. 'I'm so far from okay, you have no idea. I hate this room, and I hate needing oxygen, and I hate that I can't do _anything_ anymore, and that that's probably not going to change. And I'm fuckin' angry that you haven't come to see me because you were too busy having a crisis, but at the same time I can understand why. If it'd been Michael, or anyone else, and I was the one who'd smashed their chest up by accident? Yeah, I'd be a mess, and I don't have half the guilt-complex that you do. But none of it's stuff we can change, so we deal with it. I don't blame you, and you don't get to leave again, or I swear to Christ I'll send Ryan after you and he won't be so friendly this time.'

He was panting by the time he finished speaking, and he went limp against the pillows, closing his eyes and just breathing for a few minutes.

Geoff watched him, heart aching to see his lively lad so worn out just by talking, so full of love for him that he felt like he might burst.

'I'm so sorry,' he said, swallowing down a lump in his throat. 'I'm sorry you got hurt, and I'm really, really sorry I'm an asshole and I haven't been around.'

'Apology accepted,' Gavin said, and usually Geoff would have mocked him for sounding like a pompous prick, but for once he was just desperately glad to hear it.

'Okay,' Geoff said, and squeezed Gavin's hand, forcing a smile.

Gavin smiled back. 'So,' he said with a sigh, 'I've not been anywhere lately. What've you been up to?'

Geoff laughed. 'Believe it or not, I actually have been working my little ass off. It wasn't just an excuse.'

'Yeah it was, but none of us are idiots, and I know Jack's been watching you. The only way to get away with claiming you were busy was to actually _be_ busy, wasn't it?'

'So fucking busy,' Geoff agreed, sagging theatrically. 'Dude, I'm so sick of meetings.'

'Aww, lookit the poor little crime lord. It's so hard being king,' Gavin said, and when he grinned he almost looked like there was nothing wrong at all.

'Shut up, asshole,' Geoff said, easy and instinctive. 'I was going to offer to cook for you when you come home, but maybe I'll let Ray feed you Red Baron instead.'

Gavin moaned. 'I can't wait to eat what I want, when I want again. Geoff, I would honestly suck your nob for a steak right now.'

'No need to go that far, buddy. Do you want steak tomorrow?'

'Steak and mash and spiced creme brulee,' Gavin said, so quickly that it was obvious he'd been fantasising about it.

Geoff squeezed his hand again, still revelling in just being able to touch. 'You got it.'

So much was still broken, but Geoff felt a thousand tons lighter being able to talk to Gavin again. Being effectively ordered to stop blaming himself and move on had been more of a relief than he could have predicted, and he found himself looking to the future with hope for the the first time in weeks.

He sat with Gavin for hours, telling him all about the new deals he had negotiated, the shipments he had arranged, the thousand little details of running a major crew day-to-day, behind the storm and stress of the big, explosive jobs. He was slightly worried that it was all deadly boring, but Gavin didn't seem to mind, and actually piped up with questions whenever Geoff wound down, just wanting him to keep talking.

It was evening when the crew apparently decided that the two had had long enough to settle their issues.

The door slammed open and Michael and Ryan came in, flushed and grinning. They looked freshly showered and changed, but Michael was carrying a hatchet, and there was blood on the blade.

'Trevor is dead as _dicks_ ,' Michael said, slamming the hatchet down on Gavin's table and grinning at him.

Gavin didn't look surprised, more morbidly interested, and Geoff realised that they must have asked what Gavin wanted and carried out his revenge as requested. 

'You really did that, drew the eagle on him and everything?' he squeaked, sounding delighted and horrified all at once.

'It was less of an eagle and more of a rubber duck,' Ryan said, grinning. 'Fake AH was here, you know?'

'Oh my god,' Gavin said, and laughed so hard he was left gasping for breath.

Ryan put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him back against the pillows and watching anxiously until his breathing eased.

Gavin looked tired and frustrated when he got his breath back, a distressing combination that Geoff had already started to hate. It was still early days, relatively speaking, and he dared to hope there would be further improvement, but the odds were that Gavin was going to have to learn to live with new limitations. For someone who had always delighted in wrestling, rough-housing and running riot, suddenly having to be so careful with himself was bound to be difficult.

'I can't believe you actually did a blood eagle,' Gavin said when he had recovered, still marvelling at the two triumphant killers. 'That's probably the first time in a thousand years.'

Ryan hummed. 'Might be the first time ever, actually. The sources aren't entirely trustworthy, and it might have been something the historians made up later.'

'Totally works, though,' Michael said. 'Made a hell of a mess.'

Geoff pulled a face. 'Thanks for showering, but you could have left the axe behind.'

'Nah,' Ryan said. 'It's a souvenir for Gavin.'

Gavin huffed. 'I don't think the nurses will let me keep it. Infectious diseases and all that guff. Take it home for me?'

'You got it, boi,' Michael promised. 'You can have it tomorrow.'

'Can't wait,' Gavin said. 'It feels like I've been stuck in here forever.'

*

Gavin came home like a conquering hero, surrounded by his crew but insisting on making it from the car to the elevator to the couch without help.

He was quickly set up on the couch in a veritable nest of blankets and pillows, with the tv remote and his Xbox controller and a mini-fridge full of water and soda within easy reach, everyone fluttering around to get him situated so he wouldn't have to move.

'Dinner in about an hour, Gav, so you can take a nap first if you want,' Geoff said, horribly aware of how tired Gavin looked after just the short trip home.

'Nah, maybe later,' Gavin said, looking around him, no doubt taking note of the minor changes that had happened in his absence: A new dent in the entertainment centre where Michael had thrown a controller. A bright Welcome To Los Santos tourist poster that Ryan had hung on the wall and used for knife throwing practice. Kitschy new cushions in the shape of bullseyes that would probably end up getting shot at the next time they were drunk and stupid. 

He looked happy just to be in his own territory again, and Geoff was unspeakably glad to see him there, despite the small tank of oxygen they had had to set up next to him, and the glimpse of an appalling scar that was visible at the neck of his too-big t-shirt. Geoff had seen the full extent of it as Gavin changed clothes, and it was disturbingly like the classic y-shape of an autopsy incision. He had felt sick at the sight of it, until he remembered that dead skin had to be stapled back together, whereas Gavin's wound had healed over. In its own way, it was a sign that he was still alive, just like the dozens of fresh pink shrapnel scars that dotted Geoff's legs.

'Who's up for Halo?'

'Campaign co-op or multiplayer?' Jack asked. She was terrible at competitive multiplayer and usually chose to sit out, but she played a good supporting role for co-op when they needed a fourth player.

'Let's go for co-op,' Gavin said. 'I'm not awake enough to handle Ray and Ryan beating my arse.'

Geoff left them setting up a game and went into the kitchen, checking on the steaks that he had left marinating overnight. They should have had more than enough time to develop a proper flavour, and he set about peeling a mountain of potatoes to make mash, humming quietly as he worked.

Ryan showed up next to him without a sound, and only long experience with the man's stealthy habits kept Geoff from jumping out of his skin.

'Put those knife skills to good use,' he said, pointing Ryan to the growing pile of peeled potatoes. 'There're beans in the fridge that need topping and tailing, too.'

Ryan set to work with a will, and both of them turned frequently to look over the breakfast bar, checking on the gamers sprawled around Gavin on the couch. They weren't being as raucous as they might have before, but Michael still shouted when he died, and Gavin's noises were almost the same, just a little quieter and more breathless than before.

'Close enough?' Ryan murmured, when a squawk from Gavin cut off in a cough and a quiet, pained sound.

Geoff swallowed. 'It'll have to be,' he said. Damaged or not, Gavin was alive, and that meant everything.

'He's still healing,' Ryan said. 'Give him another couple of months, then we'll know what he's really dealing with.'

Geoff could only hope that there was a lot more improvement to come, since in his present state Gavin would never be an active member of the crew again, but he knew better than to count on it.

*

After the initial healing process was over, Gavin's progress slowed to a crawl, tiny gains in lung capacity and a gradual reduction in pain the only real changes. Five months after his surgery, Caleb finally, regretfully declared that they couldn't expect Gavin to get any better. His ribcage had healed, bone and metal meshing together, but he was still fragile, and the massive scarring in his lungs wasn't going to go away. 

It felt like a gut punch to Geoff, standing in the examination room with Gavin and watching the hope drain out of his eyes.

'Well, that's it then,' Gavin said later, after they were back in Geoff's car and heading home.

'That's what?' Geoff asked cautiously, wary of Gavin's mood.

'I'm properly screwed, aren't I?' Gavin said, voice tight, looking out of the window and refusing to meet Geoff's eye. 'I'm not stupid, Geoff. I can't run. I can't walk up a flight of stairs without having to stop. Half the time I still need an oxygen tank. You'd have to be a bloody idiot to take me on a heist - I'd get someone killed. Obviously I'm out of the crew.'

'You're not out,' Geoff said, fierce and instinctive. 'We'd never make you leave. You're Fake AH until you die, asshole.'

'Might as well be dead,' Gavin muttered, barely loud enough for Geoff to hear.

Geoff pulled the car over with a screech of tires.

'Please don't say that,' he said desperately, wishing Gavin would look at him. He had spent as much time with Gavin as he could since the lad had come home, trying to push his guilt aside and make up for his earlier absence, but in the moments when Gavin struggled most he felt his own grief rise up all over again. 'Yeah, it fucking sucks that you can't do everything you used to, but there's a million miles between living with limits and being dead.'

'Easy for you to say,' Gavin snapped.

'Yeah it is, but I'd trade places with you if I could. I'm thirteen years older than you, it's a fucking tragedy that you're the one who got hurt, I know that. If you want to stab me in the chest to even things up, I'll actually _let_ you, I swear to God.'

'Don't be an idiot.'

'I'm dead serious, Gav. If you think there's nothing left to live for, shred my lungs right now and watch me prove you wrong.' He pulled a viciously serrated knife out of the glovebox and offered the hilt to his friend.

Gavin shied away, warding it off as though Geoff was threatening him.

'That's mental.'

'Yeah it is. I mean it though, no bluffing. Not coming out on heists isn't the same as being dead, not by a long shot.'

Gavin finally met his eyes, and they sat for a long moment in frozen silence, Geoff still offering him the knife.

'Of course I'm not gonna stab you. Put it away, for Christ's sake.'

'You're still in the crew, and even more importantly we still care about you,' Geoff said, slow and careful. 'Don't ever think that your skills in the field were all we wanted you for.'

He waited, unmoving, until Gavin finally nodded, and only then did he put the knife away and restart the car.

When they got back to the penthouse he had a quiet word with Ray and Michael, pointing them towards where Gavin was sitting, grim-faced and silent.

'Gotcha,' Ray said, when Geoff had explained the bad news and asked for a distraction. He turned and ran into the living room, vaulting over the back of the couch and landing just close enough to make Gavin bounce a little.

'Hey, Michael, get ready for an ass whooping!' he called back.

'Why's that?' Michael said, walking into the living room after him.

'Mario Party time, motherfucker!'

'Ohhhh shit, it's on!' Michael said, not missing a beat.

Ray threw Gavin a wiimote, starting a three-player game without giving him a chance to argue. Geoff watched for a few minutes, making sure Gavin wasn't still stewing, and he was pleased to see that even if he could tell they were doing it deliberately, the lad couldn't help but add to their trash-talk and get drawn into the game.

Jack and Ryan were out, so Geoff sent them a quick text.

>>>Meet me at the 3rd St warehouse asap.

While the other lads kept Gavin busy, it was time for the gents to have a talk.

*

Geoff had only been waiting in the warehouse yard for a few minutes when Ryan and Jack rolled up in convoy, parking their two Zentornos on either side of his Adder.

'What's up, Geoff?' Jack asked, as soon as she was out of the car.

'Gavin had a check-up this morning,' Geoff said, and both their faces immediately turned serious. If Geoff was calling a gents meeting, it couldn't have been good. 'Caleb said not to expect any more improvement. What you see now is what you get from now on.'

'Well, fuck,' Ryan said emphatically, rubbing a hand over his jaw. 

Geoff could appreciate the sentiment. All of them had held some vain hope that Gavin was still going to get better, and it hurt to have it taken away.

'There's no way in hell he can come out with us again,' Jack said, never one to mince words.

'Yeah,' Geoff said, sighing. 'And I kind of feel like I don't want to heist without him.'

'He can still hack stuff for us remotely,' Ryan said. 'And we could call in one of the B-team for an extra man if we need one.'

'Oh, I know,' Geoff said. 'It's not a question of whether we could pull off jobs without Gavin, I'm just wondering if I want to.'

'What's in your head, then?' Jack asked.

Geoff didn't answer for a long moment, leaning back against his million-dollar hypercar and staring up at one of the many, many warehouses under his control.

'We're all millionaires fifty times over,' he said eventually. 'Sure, we've worked our asses off for it, but the fact remains that if it was just money we could have stopped a long time ago. I hate the day-to-day management bullshit. It's mostly been the thrill of the big jobs that's kept me going so long, and that's always gonna be tainted now, isn't it?'

'You're thinking about retiring,' Ryan said, and Geoff couldn't tell if he was in favour of the idea or not.

'Kind of, yeah,' Geoff said. 'It was a fucking stupid accident, what happened to him. But that doesn't mean it couldn't happen again. We've had a hell of a run of luck until now.'

'And we're really fucking good at what we do, but yeah, luck's definitely had a hand in it,' Ryan agreed.

'Might be time to stop pushing that luck quite so much, then. I don't mean full retirement, I'm not sure any of us could stand it, but perhaps we could step back a little. Gavin's not going to have a choice, and it might be easier for him if we ease off as well.'

Jack shook her head slowly. 'You can't just leave a power vacuum like that, the city would tear itself apart. We'd all be targets.'

'I'm not talking about a power vacuum,' Geoff said, waving her off. 'We've been training our replacements for years. The second-stringers could take over so smoothly that no one outside the crew would even notice, I guarantee it.'

Between them, the B-team had every skill necessary to run Los Santos on their own: Lindsay and Kerry as the front-men, the negotiators and faces of the crew. Matt as their careful, methodical technician and bomb maker, Trevor as their too-smart sniper. Kdin as the wetworks specialist, the sinister one who would get his hands dirty in the worst kind of way, and Jeremy as the Molotov-wielding wildcard. It wasn't a perfect one-for-one swap with the current crew, but they could cover all the bases between them. If not for the iron-clad loyalty among the Fake AH, they probably would have tried to overthrow the old guard already.

'Ray's barely twenty-five. I can't see him retiring,' Ryan said thoughtfully.

'He doesn't have to. Or Michael, or any of you,' Geoff said. He dragged a hand through his hair. 'This is me letting you know that I'm going to take a step back. It's a gents-only meeting for a reason: Jack, if you want leadership, take it. If you don't want it, Ryan gets the next chance. You've both been around the block a few hundred times. I could imagine you appreciating the chance to sit back and enjoy the fruits of our efforts, but equally I could understand you wanting to keep going.'

There was a long silence, Jack staring at Geoff with a mixture of concern and ancient fondness. Ryan was staring at the ground, a thoughtful frown on his face.

'We're sure as shit not getting any younger,' Jack said, after so long that her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silent yard.

Geoff smiled at her, so grateful that she could see where he was coming from.

'I don't want to lead, though, it wouldn't feel right without you. I'm a natural second.'

'Baby, you'll always be first to me,' Geoff cooed, and Jack laughed, flipping him the bird.

Ryan nodded, sudden and sharp, apparently at the end of his train of thought.

'I'm not the retiring type, but I wouldn't mind being able to take a few more breaks,' he said. 'I don't want to lead either, but why do we need a new leader anyway?'

Geoff frowned and waited for him to go on.

'You said yourself that you aren't stopping completely. It's not like you won't be around, and we're always going to look to you first, whether we're supposed to or not. Even when you do fully retire, you'll stay a figurehead. You're always going to be our leader.'

'You don't think anyone will resent that?'

'Nah,' Ryan said dismissively. 'You've always been weirdly hands-on for a kingpin. And the thing that makes this crew special is that everyone cares about each other. We don't have the kind of people who'd want to shove you out of the way.'

It was a surprising relief to hear it. He had been entirely serious in telling Gavin that there was more to life than their work, but it still helped to know that the other gents felt the same.

'So we're all agreed to draw back, hand primary control of our side of the business over to Lindsay and co?'

'All in favour, say aye,' Ryan said, grinning.

'Aye,' they said, almost in unison.

Geoff exhaled hard, sagging a little against his car.

'Thank Christ, I'm not the only one. Okay.'

Jack and Ryan both laughed, and Jack shoved his shoulder.

'It's okay, old man. We'll come share a suite at the retirement home with you and Gav.'

'Yeah, god, I wish Gav was as old as I am,' Geoff said, taking a moment to adjust to their decision. He couldn't decide if he felt heavier or lighter for it.

Jack nodded and squeezed his arm. 'It sucks, but he's alive. That matters most, right?'

Geoff nodded fervently. 'Of course. The next question is: do we speak to the other lads in front of Gav, or without him?'

'I think the longer we go around making plans behind his back, the more he's going to feel like he doesn't matter,' Ryan said shrewdly.

'Point taken,' Geoff said, and shook his head. 'This is gonna be a fun conversation.'

He couldn't see Gavin taking their decision as anything less than an insult at first, and Geoff wasn't looking forward to talking him down from his instinctive tantrum. There wasn't much choice. In the long run, it would have been so much worse to try and keep the rest of the crew running as normal and leave Gavin behind.

*

The penthouse was quiet when they returned. Gavin was asleep on the couch, leaning bonelessly on Ray's shoulder as the sniper played Destiny with the volume turned down, grinding mindlessly for glimmer. Michael was in the kitchen toasting poptarts, and Geoff made a bee-line for him, drawn in by the scent of cinnamon sugar.

'How'd it go?' he asked, stealing a poptart and taking a bite.

Michael scowled half-heartedly but didn't stop him.

'I think we wore him out. Doesn't take much these days. But I think we kept his mind off things until then.'

'Perfect,' Geoff said. 'We'll let him sleep for now. Need to have a pretty serious talk with everyone, but it can wait until he's had a nap.'

Michael snorted. 'Good choice. Serious talks with a sleepy Gav are great.'

'Great comedy, yes. Greatly effective? Not so much,' Ryan declared, sitting at the breakfast bar and pouring himself a glass of the gross-looking green juice he liked.

Geoff took another bite of the poptart and dropped it back on Michael's plate, wandering into the living room. He pulled the pistol from his shoulder holster and set about cleaning it, unhurried, spreading the pieces out on a side table. It was a necessary chore, and one he might as well do while waiting for Gavin to wake up.

Ryan, Michael and Jack soon joined him, pulling out tablets or weapons of their own, settling in to browse Reddit or read or sharpen their knives. The low scrape of metal on metal and the faint game audio made for a comfortable silence, the kind that had filled the penthouse on some of Geoff's favourite nights.

Gavin didn't sleep for long, snuffling and sliding off Ray's shoulder suddenly enough to wake himself. He jerked upright and looked blearily around the room. When he saw them all gathered around doing their own quiet activities, he seemed to relax.

'Want a coffee, Gav?' Geoff offered.

Gavin nodded, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and levering himself to his feet. He wandered off to the bathroom and Geoff went to pour a mug of the high-octane espresso that they were all inured to drinking.

When Gavin came back, at the slow, careful amble that was his new default pace, his hair was wet from splashing his face, and he looked a great deal more alert.  
Geoff handed him the coffee and waved him back towards his habitual spot on the couch.

'Cheers, Geoffers,' Gavin said, taking a long swallow and wincing at the temperature.

Geoff looked around at them all, considering, and then sat back down in his armchair. It wasn't the time to stand and dictate to them.

'Alright, assholes, crew meeting time,' he declared.

There was a general shuffling, tablets being locked, knives set aside, and within a minute they were all watching him expectantly. Gavin had a distrustful look in his eye, as if he wasn't sure if he was going to like what Geoff was about to say, and it hurt to see him so wary.

Geoff sighed, keenly feeling the weight of what they had to discuss. Still, it had to happen.

'I think all of you know that Gav had a check-up today,' he began.

Gavin made a disdainful noise.

'Check-up,' he repeated mockingly. 'Let's call it what it was, Geoff, it was the sentence we've been bloody waiting for.'

Geoff tilted his chin, acknowledging the point. He was stupidly glad that Gavin hadn't called it a death sentence. Apparently their conversation in the car had helped at least a little.

'The bottom line is, Caleb doesn't think Gav's going to get any better. We're reckless, yeah, but none of us are actually morons. We all know taking Gavin into the field would either get him or one of us killed. It fucking sucks, but that's the bottom line,' Geoff finished, knowing he was repeating himself but too anxious to care. Gavin was looking more and more miserable and angry, shoulders hunching inwards as Geoff spoke. He looked like he was trying to weather a beating, and Geoff hated it.

'I can offer some tech support from here, or I can piss off entirely,' Gavin offered in a small voice. He was obviously trying to keep his tone flat, but they knew him too well. He couldn't hide how much his own words hurt him. 'I'll do whatever you guys want. I've messed up the crew for long enough while we were waiting for answers.'

There was an immediate round of dissent.

'Shut the fuck up, Gavin,' Michael spat.

'Dude, none of us think that,' Ray said.

'We won't ever ask you to leave,' Jack promised.

'You're not going anywhere,' Ryan agreed, walking his usual fine line between comforting and threatening.

Gavin looked a little better for hearing it, but when he met Geoff's eyes there was still a well of pain and frustration in his gaze. It never seemed to go away for long.

'The gents discussed it earlier, Gav. You can't keep working, and we don't want to keep going without you. All three of us agreed to step back and give Lindsay's lot primary control of Fake AH operations.'

Gavin's mouth fell open. 'You what?' he said, and suddenly looked furious. 'You can't do that, Geoff! You can't dissolve the crew because of me, that's not fair!'

'Whoa, no one said anything about dissolving the crew,' Jack said, raising a placatory hand.

'Yeah, we're not even fully retiring,' Ryan said. 'Just taking things easy. We've all earned it.'

'What about us?' Michael asked, while Gavin was still spluttering angrily, failing to find words.

'That's up to you,' Geoff said, looking fondly at Michael and Ray. The younger men were both sat on the edge of their seats, looking anxious and interested at the same time. 'We didn't like to assume what you'd want to do. You're both a lot younger. If you want to come and live the quiet life, hey, we'd love to have you, but you can always stay on and work with the B-team if you're not ready for that.'

'It's a sliding scale, too,' Jack said. 'No one's going to make a hard rule that you can't ever join a heist, or blow something up, or go shoot some douchebag in the head. It's a slow-down, not a forced stop.'

Michael seemed to consider that, frowning, but Gavin was still making frustrated, wheezy noises next to him, and he got distracted.

'For fuck's sake use your oxygen you stubborn fuck,' he said, and grabbed the mask off the side table.

He forced it onto Gavin's face and held it there while Gavin took a few breaths, his frantic squeaking going quiet.

'God you're dumb,' he said, while Gavin got his breath back. 'Trying not to use your oxygen when you need it because you think it'll make us treat you like you're more helpless is just fucking stupid!'

'Way to ruin your own point by making yourself worse,' Ray agreed.

'Piss off,' Gavin said, muffled behind the mask, but he looked defeated, sagging against the back of the couch.

'What do you think?' Geoff asked the lads, after the silence had stretched too long. 'Not that you have to give a definite answer right now. Lindsay and Kerry will just need to know eventually, so they know how much backup they can count on day to day.'

Ray laughed. 'You're literally asking if I want more time to stay home and play games and enjoy my big piles of money. So long as I can take a mission when my trigger finger starts getting itchy, I'm all for it.'

'Yay, laziness?' Ryan said, raising one eyebrow and grinning.

'Hell yeah!' Ray agreed.

Michael looked more torn. He had always liked to be busy, always moving from one project to the next.

'What do you think, boi?' he asked Gavin.

Gavin took a last pull of oxygen and set the mask aside.

'It's not up to me, is it? If I had any say, none of this'd be happening at all.'

Michael rolled his eyes. 'But since it is happening, what do you think about it?'

'I don't want you to stop because of me,' Gavin said immediately. 'You love what you do. You'd resent me forever if I told you to stop because I'm a worthless bloody cripple.'

That brought another round of protest from the crew, wordless noises of wounded disagreement. The venom in Gavin's voice when he talked about himself was horrible, but it wasn't the first time they'd heard him talk that way, and it wouldn't be the last. All they could do was keep reminding Gavin that none of them thought badly of him.

'You're exactly as worthless as you were before, Gav. That's never gonna change,' Michael said. His casual, friendly insults hadn't changed just because Gavin was damaged, and Geoff was sure that was the best thing Michael could possibly have done. Suddenly starting to tiptoe around Gavin would just have made everything seem worse.

Michael thought about it for a few minutes longer.

'I dunno, Geoff,' he said at last, shaking his head. 'I get restless.'

'Itchy fingers, I get it,' Geoff said. 'I think we all get them sometimes. I guarantee that most of us will still drop in on a heist once in a while. If anything big goes down, Lindsay will probably call all of us in, just like we used to call in the second-stringers.'

'It's basically a team swap, right?' Michael said.

'We'll see how it works in practice, but pretty much,' Geoff agreed.

Michael looked at Gavin, taking in his sad, frustrated expression and sighing.

'I'd love to spend all day every day shitting on Gavin, but I'm not sure I can quit just yet. I think I'll probably stay pretty active, just fall in where the others need a hand. Jeremy's crazy, but he's fun to work with.' 

He set one hand on Gavin's arm, and for a horrible moment Geoff thought Gavin was going to pull away. In the end, he just sagged slightly, looking miserable.

'I'm sorry, boi.'

Gavin shook his head. 'Don't be. I just said, didn't I? Don't quit and hate me for it. I can't go out with you, but it's not like I won't ever see you, you donut! No one's said anything about even moving out of here, never mind leaving the city.'

Ray perked up at that. 'We don't have to hand the penthouse over to the B-team, do we Geoff?'

'Fuck no!' Geoff said immediately. 'Those cocksuckers can get their own if they want one.'

'This needed to be discussed,' Jack said seriously. 'But I don't think things will change as much as you're probably scared they will, Gav. We're going to have more free time, be able to take it easy and maybe travel together if we want. Look on it as a vacation, a chance to enjoy the perks of being super rich for a change.'

Gavin still didn't look convinced, but he wasn't trying to leave, and he wasn't wearing himself out trying to shout at them. All in all, Geoff had feared the conversation would be much worse.

'Alright, meeting over,' he said, clapping his hands together. 'I'll meet with the B-team tomorrow, give them the good news.'

Ryan laughed. 'Hey, you've been promoted! Congratulations, have fun working as hard as we always have!'

Jack shook her head. 'Yeah right. Make them start over from scratch, then they'll have some idea of what it took to get where we are.'

'I think Kdin would actually stab me,' Geoff said, with a feigned shiver. He exhaled slowly, letting some of the tension leach out of his shoulders. It hadn't been an easy day. 'I was going to cook,' he said. 'But I'm pretty much done for the day. Since we're starting a life of being rich and idle, how about we order a mountain of take-out and watch something dumb?'

'Dibs on Italian,' Gavin said immediately, and Geoff smiled, glad that he could still care about something that didn't really matter at all.

'One vote for Italian,' he said. 'Anyone care to outvote him?'

Gavin squawked in protest, and Geoff creased up laughing.

'Oh my god you're too easy,' he said between chuckles. 'We can order from multiple places, dumbass! No one said we have to all eat the same thing.'

Gavin looked annoyed, but it was a smaller, more familiar kind of irritation, and Geoff would take it over genuine misery any day. Some things couldn't be fixed, and it was never going to be the same as it had been when Gavin was well, but he dared to hope that it would still be alright. The crew were still together, would stick with Gavin no matter how his new limits frustrated him, and in the end that was all they could do.

Jack had been pouring drinks, and when she passed him a glass of fine, smooth whiskey Geoff knew exactly what to do with it. When everyone had a drink, he raised his glass.

'To the Fake AH Crew! No matter what changes, we're still here, and no one's getting rid of us.'

'Fake AH Crew!' the others echoed, and when he saw Gavin raise his glass and drink, joining the toast, Geoff felt his heart swell with relief. Despite it all, Gavin was still with them, and nothing else mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> This got wildly out of hand because Geoff wouldn't stop feeling awful. It was based on a short ask fic I sent to anarchetypal ages ago, and somehow ballooned into 17k. I might possibly have ended up working on some of my own issues with permanent injury though writing, so that might be why.


End file.
